


Pranks

by ChainsawMannerisms



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Clowns, M/M, Oneshot, been seeing a lot of sal's clown mask lately and here we are, but he's not mad about it, larry being scared
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 11:50:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17897894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChainsawMannerisms/pseuds/ChainsawMannerisms
Summary: Larry gets an ominous message from Sal and can't help but jump to the worst conclusions. He's not expecting what he finds.--AU where Henry and Lisa do not get married, around Episode 4 (Sal's moving out soon, so their ages are 22 and 23).





	Pranks

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in the middle of the night and cleaned it up just now, constructive criticism is welcome! I'm no professional writer lol.

        It’s a Saturday night like any other. Larry is down in his room working on his next masterpiece. The canvas in front of him is littered with acrylic carnage, depicting some poor guy’s brains splattered on the ground underneath the body of a guitar. It’s gruesome, but also unfinished, and he’s going for a classic rock CD cover type vibe. Larry steps back to admire his work so far before glancing down at the pallet in his hand. There’s more paint on his hand than there is on his pallet at this point, so he holds his paintbrush between his teeth while he sets out to squeeze more paint onto it. His hair had been pulled into a bun before he started painting, but the intermittent headbanging sessions to the Sanity’s Fall blasting from his radio have all but undone it. A few chunks have been slapped into the paint a few times, but eh, who cares? The guy’s got passion, and passion is messy.

        Larry’s eyeing up the half smoked blunt on his dresser when he hears the crackle of his walkie-talkie. It’s nearly drowned out by his stereo blasting music, but Larry is so used to the sound that he manages to catch it. He sets his brush down on the lip of his easel and wipes his paint stained hands onto his jeans before picking up the device.

        “Sorry dude, one more time?” The walkie-talkie sputters to life again.

        _“Come over.”_ The voice on the other end sounds.. groggier than usual. Is Sal sick or something? Larry’s eyebrows pull together in confusion. They rarely, if ever, hung out in Sal’s apartment. Plus he was moving in a couple days and all his stuff was packed up.

        “Everything alright man?” he asks. Sal was never one to worry his friends without good reason, and the ominous demand followed by radio silence makes Larry shift uncomfortably.

        “Sal?” he tries again. Nothing. Silence was never a good sign, especially from Sal. Ditching the walkie-talkie, Larry all but sprints from his room and out of his apartment. His shoulder clips the busted vending machine as he runs but the pain barely registers in his mind. The creaky elevator feels like it’s moving slower than ever and Larry’s brain is on a treadmill of awful scenarios while he paces around inside. He smashes the lit up ‘4’ button several times as if it’ll speed things up.

        _“Fuck, is Henry drunk again? Is it the demon? Did someone **die?** ”_ Larry’s thoughts jump from one bad conclusion to the next, and the elevator doors barely have time to open before he’s barreling out into the 4th floor hallway. Larry has some sense to pause at the door and listen for signs of a fight, but there is only silence. It does nothing to ease the violent churning in Larry’s stomach. He takes a moment to catch his breath and then, carefully, he twists the doorknob. Larry is almost surprised at the calm atmosphere. The lights are off. There are no shadowy figures with red eyes, ominous blood trails, or muffled sobs. It’s just quiet.

        Scary quiet.

        Larry tries to ignore the tight feeling in his throat and whisper-yells for Sal.

        “Sally face? You in here?” Larry strains his ears for a response. He notices that there aren’t any mouse clicks or keyboard buttons being pushed from the door next to Sal’s, meaning Henry isn’t home. Five seconds pass, then ten, but he hears it. It was barely there, and might even be his mind playing tricks on him, but he swears he hears something shuffle behind Sal’s closed bedroom door. By now he’s sweating. The battered doorknob challenges Larry to try and twist it with his poor, shaking hands. Eventually he does, not before swallowing around the lump in his throat.

        Sal’s room is dark, which is unusual. Larry’s hand frisks the wall to find the light switch and he flicks it, but nothing changes. A bit more panic floods his brain as he frantically flips the switch back and forth, before eventually accepting that he’s stuck in the dark. Of all the times for this shitty building to be having electrical problems. Larry takes comfort in the few glow-in-the-dark stars Sal has stuck to the wall across the room, but the feeling is swiftly pulled out from under him when he hears something call his name.

        _ **“La-a-a-a-a-r-r-r-y...”**_ The croaky voice sounds eerily similar to _The Grudge_ and Larry feels every inch of his skin try to crawl off his body and out of the room. But he’s frozen with fear, sweating and too petrified to turn around to face whatever is calling for him. For all he knows, the red eyed demon has locked Sal away in that weird underground cult bunker and is coming for him next. Is it too late to run for his life?

        _“Fuck,”_ he thinks, _“I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”_ Knees shaking, Larry slowly turns in place to face his fears. It takes every ounce of strength he has to not squeeze his eyes shut. He expects to see a pair of red glowing eyes staring back, but there is only darkness. His eyes have been slowly adjusting to the room and he barely makes out the border of Sal’s closet when suddenly there’s a click, and a face.

        A fucking _clown_ face.

        Larry screams bloody murder and falls backwards onto his ass, ready to crab walk out of there as fast as he can, because _what the fuck,_ when the light source under the creepy face starts to shake and the figure bursts out laughing.

        “Oh my god, you should’ve-”, the figure pauses to laugh, arms clutching his stomach and pointing the flashlight off to the side, “Larry, you should’ve seen your _face!”_ It takes a moment, mainly because all the blood had drained from his head in fear, but Larry shakes himself out of his shock and stares dumbly at his friend.

        “A.. Are you KIDDING ME?” he exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. Sal’s response is just more wheezes of laughter. “Dude, I almost had a heart attack! Where did you even get that?!” Sal straightens up, still chuckling. He walks out from the closet and uses the flashlight to find his desk chair and pulls it into the middle of the room.

        “I found it while I was packing! Lar, I couldn’t help it, I like, _just_ found out you’re afraid of clowns last week. You totally would’ve done the same thing.” Sal hops up onto the chair and twists the loose bulb back into place, and the room is flooded with light. Larry would comment on how weird the place looks with all the posters taken down and the furniture missing if he wasn’t still trying to convince his heart to beat at a normal speed.

        “I would _not_ do that to you, because _I’m_ not a dick!” Larry stands up from the floor and, as much as he wants to be mad, he finds himself cracking a smile. Damn it. Sal must spot his smile because he laughs again. He carefully sits down on the chair and spins in it a few times, recalling how terrified Larry was when they watched _IT_ last week. Larry watches his friend's hair grow wild with the force of the spins, the creepy clown mask a little less unsettling than it had been upon first sight now that he knows who’s behind it. He sighs.

        “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

        Sal stops spinning. His ears are mostly covered by his unruly hair, but Larry can just barely tell that they’re turning red.

        _“Fuck, I said that out loud!”_ Larry’s brain screams at him for his slip-up. Sal doesn’t say anything, opting to scratch the back of his head, expression hidden behind his mask. Larry clears his throat with the force of a dying man.

        “I-I uh, I’ll..” Shit, his face is on fire. “Change your mask and uh, meet me in my room. If you wanna hang.” The last bit is tacked on quickly so it sounds less suggestive. He hopes it helps, anyways. Larry inwardly groans, the lack of verbal reaction from Sal making it hard to gauge the awkwardness in the room.

        “Yeah, I’ll meet you there.” Sal's voice comes out small, but even.

        “Cool, alright uh, see ya dude.” Larry slips out of the room a little faster than necessary. Way to go, loud mouth, he thinks.  
\--

        Once Larry leaves, Sal unlocks the latches on the back of his clown mask and sets it down on one of the moving boxes. He reaches up and holds his own face in his hands, barely registering the unevenness under his fingertips. He can feel his ears burning.

        _“Cute?”_


End file.
